If You Give a Werewolf a Cat
by Kalvin Edward Rumwyn
Summary: He'll want to chase it. And if you let him chase it, the werewolf's Animagus friend will want to chase him.


Lupin bit his nails and paced the length of the room before turning and pacing the other direction. Sirius, who had been watching the young lycanthrope-the flecks of grey in Lupin's hair not yet present-finally broke his rather comfortable position on the old, moth-eaten and shredded couch. He got up and held the werewolf.

"You'll break right through these rotted boards," Sirius told him simply. "You should relax for a bit and rest before-"

"I can't!" Lupin exclaimed. "It's almost time, Sirius. Go lock the door."

"You worry too much," Sirius told him, locking the door as the werewolf asked and hiding the key in the usual unreachable spot.

Lupin snapped, "My best friend is locked in a room with me during the most dangerous time of the month with no one else to help him. How can I not worry?"

"This isn't the first time Prongs and Wormtail have ditched up. Besides, I think we're more than best friends after last month," Sirius pointed out, "and I know how to soothe you."

Lupin flushed at the memory and murmured, "Do you have spare robes and chocolate?"

"Yes."

"The steak?" Lupin asked with a soft gasp at the end of his sentence.

"Venison or beef?"

Lupin looked over, asking in an almost frightened whisper, "You know how to stop me?"

"I can handle you, Lupin. Just relax," Sirius told him. "You'll only give yourself an ulcer or a heart attack."

Lupin snapped again, feeling a sort of itching spreading over his skin and instinctively scratching at it, "It's an embarrassing and painful condition."

Sirius knew the changes were starting and rubbed Lupin's shoulders, trying to get him to relax and asked, "Would you rather deal with it alone?"

Lupin sighed, "No. I don't."

"Relax," Sirius insisted.

"I'm sorry for anything I do," Lupin told him. "You're a good friend."

"Boyfriend," Sirius teasingly corrected. He stepped around to nuzzle his lycanthrope partner. "It won't be that bad. Maybe you'll do something embarrassing this time, something funny."

Lupin covered his face with his hands, "James will never let me live it down."

Sirius kissed his forehead, telling Lupin, "The moon's almost up, Remus."

"You're amazing," Lupin told him, smiling a bit as his muscles spasmed beneath his skin.

Sirius sat back, a cloud of dust spewing up from the couch as he told the werewolf, "I know."

Remus dropped to his knees as the moon rose and a cloud evaporated before it. With a pained howl that was half beast and half man, the transformation began. Canines-aptly named-elongated and sharpened. Lupin's face changed shape into the more canine features of a lycanthrope. Fur sprouted and, as his lycanthrope form was bigger than his human shape, Lupin's robes fell apart at the seams. Lupin tilted his head back, howling again in a sort of horrified and wild but freed rhapsody.

Sirius watched before transforming himself. As a mutt smaller than a man, his robes ignored by his illegal Animagi form, and laid down on the couch, unable to do anything for the werewolf yet.

In his beast form, Lupin could smell humans for miles and it bothered him so. Damn. Much. He was hungry for flesh and blood and marrow. Lupin threw his head back, eyes clouded with the beast's influence, and howled.

Padfoot leapt off the couch, dragging out a choice cut of venison and offering it to the upright beast in the room. Without hesitation, Lupin lowered his snout and began to eat. No questioning it, just feasting. Padfoot let him eat as he pleased, knowing to come between a werewolf-even one that had had previous attachments to a person-an its meal was tantamount to suicide. So Padfoot laid back in the couch.

Lupin's snout rose, his ears perked up. Padfoot raised his head as well, hoping it wasn't hunters. Instead, perched on the windowsill in a mocking manner, was a grey tabby, one with heterochromia resulting in a brown and green eye. Padfoot made a soft growling, but Lupin was more vivid in his reaction. His lip curled back and Lupin let out a ferocious snarl.

Then the lycanthrope lunged out the window after the cat.

Padfoot, of course, leapt out the window after the werewolf.

The people of Hogsmeade were surprised that night and could all agree they had never heard a louder-or more ridiculous-ruckus. Some brave wizards and witches peered out their curtains only to be met with the sight of a werewolf-or at least a giant wolf-chasing a cat down the streets and into alleys. Following the comedic couple was a large black dog-some tried to argue it was also a wolf.

Whatever the case, the comedic incident was the talk of the town the next day. It was also the reason Lupin barricaded himself with his work for the day in the Shrieking Shack.

All the chocolate Sirius claimed and pretended he owned couldn't get Lupin to unlock the bedroom door.


End file.
